STEMS & FORKS

Beautiful musings of flora and fare.

Fusion

Mochi Balls with Fermented Organic Blueberries from Chile

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This post was sponsored by Fruits From Chile. All thoughts and opinions are my own

If you didn’t get it right with your new year’s resolutions this month, don’t worry. There’s another new year coming up on February 5th 2019 and you can start anew! With the Lunar new year just around the corner, I thought these Mochi Balls filled with lacto fermented organic Chilean Blueberries would be perfect to ring in the new year and provide a second opportunity to become healthier and kinder to one’s body and mind. 

Lacto-Fermented Foods:

So we all know how naturally fermented foods provide healthy probiotic bacteria. Stuff that’s good for our gut. Studies have shown that the natural probiotics created from fermentation also increases vitamin content thereby boosting our immunity naturally which helps fend off the flu and cold. (source) Consuming fermented foods are also safer to consume than raw as the lactic acids essentially kill off the bad bacteria such as E-Coli. (Source) And it has been proven time and again that improving gut health aids digestion thereby helping promote healthy body weight. It doesn’t stop here. There are a plethora of reasons lacto fermented foods are good for us. 

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Matcha and Black Sesame Crêpes

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My mother in law would probably pucker her lips till they turned white and wrinkled much like her backside exit if I ever told her what I did to the base of her crêpe recipe. I asianized it.

For the old school Belgian or Frenchie, crêpes are a kind of sacred dish. My mother in law has never deviated from the simple recipe of just flour, eggs, milk, sugar. She normally serves it with some cassonade (brown sugar), nutella or some jam on the table. I remember once serving crêpes for lunch with sour cream, bacon and chives…and yup the puckered backside  lips appeared. “Quelle horreur” she exclaimed. Awww…. Always love her candour! She skipped the bacon and cheese and went straight to the cupboards to grab the brown sugar. She refused to even try! Old school and I forgot to mention, stubborn.

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Kimchi & Egg Galettes

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Kimchi, kale, spinach and chèvre in a crusty, flaky buttery pastry topped with an egg – who can resist such a plethora of flavours? This delightful dance of sweet/savoury, rich/acidic, chewy/flaky and hearty galette is my interpretation of Omurice. I was inspired by this childhood favourite comfort dish originally from Japan. Omurice is essentially fried rice crowned with a paper thin omelette, with ketchup slathered atop. Koreans have adapted it by adding kimchi (of course), along with a mish-mash of proteins, seafood or veggies in the rice. Omurice can really be made of anything. So long as it’s fried rice blanketed by an omelette. Its name is a quintessential example of Gairaigo which basically means a transvocalization. ‘Omu’ for omelette, and ‘raisu’ for rice.

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